Haiku Classic: May 18, 2025 -- A show of power
machi areba takaki tou ari tori wataru
--
where there is a town
there's always a tall tower --
migrating birds
--
Akito Arima (1930-2020). From "Haiku Dai-Saijiki" (Comprehensive Haiku Saijiki), Kadokawa Shoten, Tokyo, 2006.
The kigo "tori wataru" (birds migrating) is usually used in reference to birds arriving from their northern breeding and feeding grounds to spend the winter in Japan and is therefore an autumnal season word. In some season word dictionaries, though, it refers (or can refer to) birds leaving Japan to fly south. Accordingly, I have translated it as "migrating birds" rather than "birds from the north" or "arriving birds," Either way, it certainly seems, as the poet states, that wherever people spread out and populate a place they build towns and invariably erect a tall building or tower as a show of power -- a landmark staking their claim over the surrounding geography. As readers, our eyes are drawn from the town and raised to a tower, before being raised further to the sky and the flock of birds. The flow of the haiku is natural and concrete. Human migrants also seem to be drawn to bigger and more powerful cities as they search for opportunity and a place to "overwinter." The alliteration with the "t" sound in the original is pleasing, heightening the poesy of the piece.
Pique your poetic interest with more Haiku in English here.
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